Researchers studied wild bonobos and found that they produce a call type, known as the “peep”, across a range of positive, negative and neutral situations, such as during feeding, travel, rest, aggression, alarm, nesting and grooming.
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It turns out that the peeps are actually being used in context. While scientist are certain of this, it has not been easy to study the animals in the wild because they native to politically unstable Congo region. In comparison to a piercing shriek, the peeps are high-pitched, subtle and produced with closed lips. This may be true for adults, but before language develops babies produce a group of calls (called “protophones”) that differ from crying and laughter and are independent of their emotional state.
Dr. Clay told redOrbit via email that research released several years ago found that human babies could produce a special type of vocalizations by the age of three months. “It became apparent that because we couldn’t always differentiate between peeps, we needed understand the context to get to the root of their communication”, Clay said. As such, they believe the exact same sound could correspond to a wide variety of emotions, making the bonobos’ peeps an example of “functional flexibility”.
Researchers said Bonobos are closely related to humans as chimpanzees.
According to lead author of the study, Zanna Clay from the University of Birmingham’s School of Psychology, these peeps made by baby primates are frequent in nature which could mean many different contexts depending on the situation.
While bonobos do not have as many characteristics similar to humans as chimpanzees do, they were observed achieving something previously believed to be human-exclusive.
“It goes along with a growing body of evidence that suggests that primates do have quite a bit of control… and goes against the general idea that animals are somehow constrained by their emotional state”, said Simon Townsend of the University of Zurich. And since it was also found that bonobos do speak to each other in odd noises, much like a child would relay info to their parents, this only adds to the similarity they have to humans, and also may help researchers in further understanding the evolution of human speech.
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“We felt that it was premature to conclude that this ability is uniquely human, especially as no one had really looked for it in the great apes”, Clay said in the statement.
